The tragic final years of Hitler’s ‘English girlfriend’ were revealed yesterday by a vicar’s daughter whose family secretly held the notorious socialite ‘under house arrest’ for five years. Margaret Laidlaw was eight when Nazi-loving Unity Mitford, then 29, was sent to live with her family in 1942.
At the time, Unity – left brain damaged by a failed suicide attempt in Munich – was a national pariah, having scandalised society by fawning over Hitler.
Now 90, Margaret vividly recalls workmen installing steel bars on Unity’s bedroom window and special locks on the vicarage doors ‘to stop her escaping’ – and how the aristocratic beauty once tried to kick her when she suggested Hitler was a bad man.
‘She was under what you and I would call house arrest,’ said Margaret, sharing her memories from nearly 80 years ago as the Daily Mail unveiled Unity’s long-lost diary in a world publishing coup. Further extracts are in today’s The Mail on Sunday.
In fascinating detail, the diary chronicles how Unity, one of the famous Mitford sisters, turned from an obsessed stalker of the world’s worst human into his mesmerised confidante. In one entry she calls him ‘simply wonderful’.
So intimate did Unity’s friendship with the Fuhrer become that, in 1938, her father Lord Redesdale was forced to state: ‘There is not, nor has there ever been, any question of an engagement between my daughter and Herr Hitler.’
Describing the background to their extraordinary house guest’s arrival, Margaret said her mother, Bettyne, a chiropodist, had known Unity’s mother, Lady Redesdale, before the war.
Speaking at her home near Edinburgh, Margaret said: ‘She was one of my mother’s clients. We lived near Rugby in the middle of England and I think that had some bearing on why Unity came to us. It meant she couldn’t signal information from the coast.’
Margaret Laidlaw, now 90, was eight when Nazi-loving Unity Mitford, then 29, was sent to live with her family in 1942
Margaret added that her father didn’t want Unity in his vicarage at first but decided that it would be ‘his contribution to the war’, as he was too old to fight. She said that when Unity died her mother was ‘very distressed’ and sobbed.
She added: ‘I was downstairs on my front doorstep with Daddy and he said, ‘Thank God, it’s all over’.’
She said: ‘That was his contribution. He would look after her and we were all under the Official Secrets Act.’
In reality, Unity – ‘who had a gammy leg and had no intention of escaping’ – posed little or no threat to national security.
She died in 1948 from meningitis linked to swelling caused by the bullet left lodged in her skull after her suicide attempt in Munich when war was declared in 1939.
Little of her background was known to young Margaret, however, whose life at the vicarage in Hillmorton was ‘incredibly sheltered’. She said her father, the Reverend Frederick Sewell-Corby, was approached by Winston Churchill ‘and asked if he would mind having Unity to stay’.
She said: ‘He agreed and Unity just became part of our family. My younger sister and I would come down to breakfast and I’d say, ‘Good morning Daddy, good morning Mummy, good morning Auntie Unity’.’
Margaret, who was awarded an MBE in 2012 for her work with the children’s charity Unicef, added: ‘She would sing these German marching songs at the piano and was a good singer, loud and spontaneous. I can also recall these marching songs while out walking between villages.’
What stands out in her memory, she added, was Unity’s height, her fair hair and the ‘lovely ruby brooch at her neck which she always wore’.
Having ‘Auntie Unity’ around, which at first seemed confusing, soon became ‘perfectly normal’.
Margaret’s mother slept in the same room as Unity and nursed her through the night.
At the time of Unity’s ‘house arrest’, she was brain damaged by a failed suicide attempt. She was a national pariah following her admiration of Adolf Hitler
‘She more or less got better but she wasn’t well enough to go to jail, so mother had been put in charge of looking after her.
‘She had done some nursing, she’s a very confident secretary, she’s a vicar’s wife, you couldn’t have anyone better – and we were in the middle of the country. So this risky woman doesn’t go to jail, she comes to the vicarage.’
Margaret added: ‘At times she was well enough to go out and liked to walk to the shop for cigarettes. The vicarage was always open to everyone and my parents might not have been happy at the start. But they took a Christian view of the thing.’
She said her father considered it his patriotic duty ‘to look after a potentially dangerous person’.
Margaret and her sister were forbidden from talking to outsiders about Unity, who was considered ‘harmless’ by MI5.
Inevitably word spread about their famous guest and the Home Office received complaints from the public that Unity was ‘driving about… picking up airmen’.
She was also spotted walking through Hillmorton eating fish and chips, accompanied by her dog Lieblich, a dachshund said to have been given to her by Hitler.
‘She was always accompanied and I was never left alone with her, certainly not for any length of time. That said, she was always jolly,’ said Margaret.
Unity, pictured centre top, smiles for the camera. A young Margaret is seen squatting beside her to the right
Not quite always, though. Margaret recalled: ‘One morning my sister and I came down and Unity was standing by the fireplace. My sister said, ‘Morning Auntie Unity. I’m so sorry your boyfriend’s died’ and she said, ‘Oh, you are such a nice child’. I said, ‘Oh – that man’ because I knew Hitler was bad, that he was the man connected with the brown line in the newspapers that marked his army invading. I knew there was something bad about it.’
In a note Unity sent to Bettyne in May 1947, when she had moved to the Mitford-owned estate on the island of Inch Kenneth off the west coast of Scotland, Unity lamented the pain in her leg.
She wrote: ‘It is so dreary up here. Oh, darling, my leg! It’s worse every day. I hope you’re all right. It’s blowing today. Goodbye darling. Write!’
While Margaret and her family sheltered Unity, there was much speculation in the Press over her whereabouts, with one story suggesting she was living on a farm in the Home Counties. Unity’s diaries detail how she was embraced into the Nazis’ inner circle in the months leading up to the war.
While her fellow Britons prepared for the ultimate sacrifice, the aristocratic girl – who was born in London but conceived in the Canadian town of Swastika – had a ringside seat in Germany.
The final entry in her diary is dated September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland. War was declared two days later. Unity was so distraught at the prospect she shot herself in the head in Munich’s English Garden park.
On her return to Britain she was vilified as an enemy of the state and the Home Office faced calls to have her interned. In later life Margaret was horrified to discover Unity was anti-Semitic. ‘My parents did a very good job keeping that away from me,’ she said.
Unearthed after 80 years, silver brooch thought to be a gift from the dictator
The delicate silver-gilt and pearl brooch, featuring a dog rose and a trio of leaves, has lain untouched in its cushioned case for 80 years.
But this simple piece of jewellery is said to have been a gift from Adolf Hitler to his English society girlfriend Unity Mitford in 1938 – the year before the start of the Second World War.
The year, when Unity is known to have enjoyed regular meetings with the Nazi dictator in Munich, where she then lived, is engraved on the back.
It is part of an extraordinary historical treasure trove unearthed for the first time today by The Mail on Sunday.
Stored carefully for decades by Margaret Laidlaw, after Unity stayed with her family under ‘house arrest’ at their vicarage in Hillmorton, Warwickshire, the brooch was inside a tattered cardboard box, which also contains letters, photos and artifacts belonging to the controversial aristocrat.
The items paint a compelling portrait of Unity’s years following her suicide attempt in Germany in 1939 – which left a bullet in her brain – and the close bond that developed between her and the family. One scrawled note from Unity – who calls herself ‘Bobo’ – to Margaret’s mother Bettyne in 1944 says: ‘I am giving Betty my diamond bracelet.’
The silver-gilt and pearl brooch has lain untouched in its cushioned case for 80 years
In a childish scrawl, Margaret’s sister Gillian writes to Unity: ‘I am longing to see you on Wednesday.’
Another letter, sent to Bettyne in May 1947, when Unity had moved on from the vicarage to Inch Kenneth, her family’s Scottish island, reveals the pain she endured in her leg as a result of her brain injury.
She writes: ‘My own darling, mother’s birthday. Only it seems so dreary up here. Oh, darling, my leg! It’s worse every day. I hope you’re all right. It’s blowing today. Goodbye darling. Write!’ Other items belonging to Unity include a travel clock, a small German pill box, a red money tin, a globe pencil sharpener and some photos of her time at the vicarage. The trove also contained two blouses.
There is also a leather identity bracelet, worn in wartime England to identify people in the event they were killed, which features a brass plate engraved with Unity’s name.
But the most extraordinary item is the brooch, which was catalogued by Margaret in a list of the box’s contents when she became custodian of them in 1975 after her mother died.
The type-written list reads: ‘Silver-gilt brooch in form of a rose. Thought to have been a gift from Hitler!’
